Organ donation is more important than ever, says CTA

Al Beeber

Lethbridge Herald

Brenda Brown knows how valuable organ donations can be.

The president of the Canadian Transplant Association is a recipient of a kidney and four other members of her family have also benefitted from donations. Two others are donors.

So she is passionate about creating awareness of the need for organ donors.

Brown said in a phone interview Wednesday that between 4,500 and 5,000 Canadians are on a waiting list to receive a life-saving organ, 65 per cent of them in need of a kidney.

About 300 Canadians die every year because an organ can’t be found, said Brown.

“Those numbers are quite high. When you think about that if somebody registered was a match, those lives might have been saved,” said Brown.

Thanks to Logan Boulet’s donations and the efforts of his parents Toby and Bernadine, hundreds of thousands of Canadians have signed donor cards.

“It’s been incredible, especially the first year. Then obviously it slowed down a little bit in the COVID years during the pandemic but it still spurred a lot of registrations and ongoing transplants, surgeries, and just ongoing continued awareness since his donations. The awareness for organ donations across Canada has been exponential since Logan’s donations,” said Brown.

In the first year after Logan’s tragic death in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, more than 100,000 Canadians signed organ donation cards. Since then another 150,000 have followed suit, said Brown.

“And it just continues to grow, especially in the month of April and May. April’s been a good month typically because it’s the organ donation month anyway so there’s a big push in that month. But since Green Shirt Day and all the awareness around the Humboldt crash and Logan’s donations…I think it has just become that much more awareness around it and Canadians are talking more about organ donation and what it can do for you,” said Brown.

Thanks to the Boulets, more Canadians feel comfortable talking about making organ donations with the subject no longer taboo, she said.

“I think that normal conversation about just going out and signing your organ donor card or being able to register your wishes and making that conversation more normalized has increased awareness and increased the registration exponentially in this country over the last four years,” said Brown.

And with kidneys so much in need, living donors are also important. A person can live a healthy life with one kidney or even with part of a liver removed since that organ is able to regenerate itself, said Brown.

The needs of these people could be met through living organ donations “if we increased some of the awareness around the safety for living donors to look after some of those kidney patients that are out there so you didn’t have to wait for somebody to pass away to donate their organs.

“There has to be more conversation around that,” said Brown who got her kidney from a living donor.

In Brown’s family, there are two lung recipients, a kidney recipient, a bone marrow recipient and a cornea recipient. Family members have donated bone marrow and kidney, she said.

“There’s a quite big passion in my life so that’s why I decided to donate my time and energy to the cause,” she added.

Of all the victims in the Humboldt crash, organs could only be taken to help others from Logan, she said due to the fact organs from deceased people have to be in a certain condition to be usable.

The efforts of the Boulet family to create awareness is “fantastic,” Brown said.

“Toby and Bernie, Mariko, what they’ve done to spur awareness for organ donation in general has been amazing and I cannot thank them enough for the creation of their foundation,” and all the work they’ve done.

“It’s fabulous and it brings a lot of awareness for all the angel donations across Canada.”

Alberta premier Jason Kenney issued a statement Wednesday about the anniversary of the crash.

“Four years ago, a truck crashed into the bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team. Sixteen people died, some of the 13 injured lost the life they knew, and families, friends and other survivors continue to live with pain of loss and memories,” said the premier.

“The rest of us remember this tragedy almost as a personal loss because we know it could have been any of us or our own loved ones. It touched every parent, grandparent and sibling, every sports team, coach and fan.

“The true legacy of this crash isn’t one of pain. It’s a legacy of generosity and compassion, of struggle and triumph, of hope and love, of resilience and grace.

“On this anniversary, we continue to honour the Humboldt Broncos, the Humboldt community and everyone who stood by them in their time of need, recovery and healing.”

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